BETTESHANGER (St. Mary), a '''parish''', in the union and hundred of Eastry, lathe of St. Augustine, E. division of Kent, 4 miles (S. S. W.) from Sandwich. Betteshanger is in the Northbourne civil Parish in the Dover district of Kent.<ref>Samuel A. Lewis, [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50795#s19 ''A Topographical Dictionary of England]'', (1848), pp. 223-228. Date Accessed: 1 July 2013. </ref>

BETTESHANGER (St. Mary), a '''parish''', in the union and hundred of Eastry, lathe of St. Augustine, E. division of Kent, 4 miles (S. S. W.) from Sandwich. Betteshanger is in the Northbourne civil Parish in the Dover district of Kent.<ref>Samuel A. Lewis, [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50795#s19 ''A Topographical Dictionary of England]'', (1848), pp. 223-228. Date Accessed: 1 July 2013. </ref>

Contents

Parish History

BETTESHANGER (St. Mary), a parish, in the union and hundred of Eastry, lathe of St. Augustine, E. division of Kent, 4 miles (S. S. W.) from Sandwich. Betteshanger is in the Northbourne civil Parish in the Dover district of Kent.[1]

Northbourne, Kent is an Ancient parish; a map of the parish boundary including Betteshanger is available at A church near you. The Church of St Mary the Virgin was within that parish and served the Betteshanger community as it grew with the industrialisation of the village.

The church of St Mary the Virgin is on the site of an earlier 13th century church and dates from the 1853 design of architect Anthony Salvin for Sir Walter James. The church is at the northern corner of Northbourne Park and the approach is by a dirt track. The site is now part of Northbourne Park School.See Kent Resources website

See Edward Hasted The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 9 (1800), pp. 583-604 at British History Online for references to the Betteshanger estate within the parish of Northbourne.

Resources

Civil Registration

Kent County Council (KCC) has a certificate centre at the Mansion House in Tunbridge Wells which holds all the completed registers for Kent since 1 July 1837 and can supply a certified copy of any Kent birth, death or marriage entry from any register within its custody or a Kent civil partnership registration from the government online database.

Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is FreeBMD.

Church records

Betteshanger, Kent parish registers of christenings, marriages and burials are available online for the following years:

Census records

FamilySearch Records includes collections of census indexes which can be searched online for free. In addition FamilySearch Centres offer free access to images of the England and Wales Census through FHC Portal Computers here have access to the Family History Centre Portal page which gives free access to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions.[1] to locate local Family History Centres in UK[2] to locate outside UK.Many archives and local history collections in public libraries in England and Wales offer online census searches and also hold microfilm or fiche census returns.

Images of the census for 1841-1891 can be viewed in census collections at Ancestry (fee payable) or Find My Past (fee payable)

The 1851 census of England and Wales attempted to identify religious places of worship in addition to the household survey census returns.

Poor Law Unions

Probate records

Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Kent Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Local Family History Centre

FHC Portal This centre has access to the Family History Centre Portal page which gives free access in the centre to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions.